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Most of the weight limits that are posted are quite "safe". They will usually hold much more than posted. If you put a 400lb weight in it, it's going to be much different than a 400lb person though. You will have much different pressure points and what not.

I'm going to go ahead and assume that is code for 'dynamic stress testing', which itself is code for...other things.

These outdoor hammocks are really not built for such activities; they're built to be lightweight. That said, my girlfriend and I hike together regularly and she spent a couple of months on the AT with me. We sleep in the same hammock frequently on the trail. All total, we have broken one ring (literally exploded in the middle of the night) and snapped some cordage on a UL suspension (wasn't Amsteel). That's just from sleeping, ie. static weight. While we have slept in my Blackbird 1.7 double once or twice, it always makes me nervous. Too much to go wrong. The netting could get loaded in just the right way from someone laying slightly out of position and tear away from the body. That's my biggest concern. So, we almost always sleep in her TrekLight double; simple and much less to fail.

So, if you want to go around rescuing people from the dirty ground, my suggestion would be to go with a simple sling hammock, like ENO, TrekLight, WB Traveler, or the many other basic hammocks out there. You may still very well have hardware failures, but the hammock itself should not let you down; figuratively or literally. At least, ours haven't after some probably 50 or so nights together in a hammock in the woods.

'Dynamic stress testing' has been a curiosity of mine since I started hammocking... I'm surprised it doesn't come up more often. I'd be interested to hear a PG rated, non-graphic account of how that works out.